


Fly to Hope

by MelyndaR



Series: Fly to Hope [2]
Category: Agent Carter (TV), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/F, F/M, Gen, M/M, Multi, Polyamory, Triad Verse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-07
Updated: 2017-10-07
Packaged: 2019-01-07 22:33:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12241905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MelyndaR/pseuds/MelyndaR
Summary: When Ana receives a nearly anonymous message, it leads to more revelations - and romantic entanglements - than anyone could've seen coming.





	Fly to Hope

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Kiyomisa for all of the lovely art in this fic! See more of her work here: "https://kiyomisa.tumblr.com/tagged/i-made-a-thing" and here: "http://archiveofourown.org/users/Kiyomisa/pseuds/Kiyomisa"

“Ana?” Edwin stepped into their kitchen, eyebrows already furrowed as he held out a slip of paper. “This note just came to the house, but I can’t make heads or tails of it. I believe it’s for you in the first place, so I thought you might have better luck with it.”

Ana, with her back to her husband, finished getting the cake she’d baked out of the oven. She put it on the stovetop, closed the oven door, wiped her hands on a towel she had on her shoulder, and then turned to Edwin. Plucking the message from his fingertips, she read the bold words:

_“AJ: Withered red rose Necessary. Stars, Leaf, and Blossom falling. plant Favorite Blossom Now.”_

She paled, not even noticing when her hand landed on the hot oven door as she stumbled backwards a step. The message floated lazily to the ground, having fallen from her hand as she muttered, “I… that’s simply not possible!”

“Ana?” Baffled by her clearly disturbed reaction, Edwin stepped forward, snatching his wife’s hand away from the oven and picking up the note before he asked, “What is it? I take it you know what this gibberish means?”

Ana nodded, but volunteered no information. She still seemed to be processing, and so Edwin waited. Eventually, she glanced up at him, saying shortly, “It’s nothing you will like.”

“May I be the judge of that?”

Ana reclaimed the note, reading it again before she looked back up at him, eyes resolute, and announced, “I need to go to Tokyo.”

* * *

“You need to come home _right now_.”

There was a clear thread of panic in her husband’s voice even through the phone, and Peggy hated it, but she didn’t think there was anything she could do about it from the office. “Edwin, I’m sorry, but I can’t. I’m in charge right now, with Chief Thompson away in Tokyo, and –”

“ _Tokyo_ is the problem!”

“What?”

“Ana.” He drew in a heavy breath – in a mostly unsuccessful attempt to calm himself, Peggy assumed – before he explained, “She received a message from an unknown source – a coded message that she claims is a plea for help, for her to go to Tokyo. She’s packing _right now_. She’s determined that if I won’t fly her there, Mr. Stark will, and he’s agreed – even volunteered one of his planes for the mission!”

“’Mission’?” Peggy repeated curiously.

Edwin made an undiscernible noise over the phone before begging, “Please, sweetheart, come home!”

 _There was something more than her husband’s dramatics going on here, wasn’t there?_ Peering out the window of Chief Thompson’s office, already searching for a worthy agent to pass the proverbial baton of authority to, she promised him, “I’m on my way.”

* * *

The three of them hadn’t yet been married six months, but, Peggy realized as she opened the door to their home, she had never heard her spouses argue with one another. Until now.

She nearly tripped over two gunny sacks in the vestibule, she was so startled by the actual shouting match taking place in the kitchen.

“There was no reason to tell her! I don’t need extra people coming. In fact, I _only_ need a pilot who will _drop me off_ , and it’s most likely best that be Mr. Stark.”

“Absolutely _not_. If I don’t like it when Peggy goes off on her own when I can help it, why on _earth_ would I let you?!”

“Because I survived without you before, and I can do it again.”

“You have no idea what you’re heading into – if anything. I’m coming, and so is Peggy.”

As if to add an exclamation point to the statement, a third gunny sack came flying through the air to land in the same general area as the other two. Peggy arched an eyebrow at the sacks – her and Edwin’s, the type that one carried in the service, and a third – smaller and more than a little well-worn. She’d barely noticed it once before, shoved high on a shelf in a dark, forgotten corner of the bedroom closet.

Peggy sidestepped them all now and headed in the direction the voices were coming from. She found them in the kitchen, Edwin filling canteens with water while Ana threw together a bundle of bread, cheeses, and dried fruit.

As Ana tossed a flask of whiskey onto her cloth before tying it closed, Peggy found her voice at the odd scene, asking, “What’s going on?”

“We,” Edwin’s eyes were filled with exasperation as he glanced at her. “Are going to Tokyo.”

_He hadn’t been able to talk their wife out of it, then._

“ _I_ am going to Tokyo,” Ana corrected. With a nearly resigned, huffy little sigh, she added, “Whether or not you two come is up to you.”

Peggy moved closer to Ana, asking curiously, “What do you think is going on, my love? Edwin mentioned a note?” Ana pulled the slip of paper from her pocket and handed it to Peggy, who read it only to become more confused. “If this is a code you understand, can you explain it to me?”

Ana sighed as if impatient to be going, but obliged. “’Withered red rose.’ That’s me. ‘Necessary.’ I’m needed – urgently, according to the capitalization of the word. There are at least two Jews – indicated by ‘Stars’ – a Brit – the ‘Leaf,’ as in tea leaves – and a Japanese – the ‘Blossom’ – who are in trouble. They’re ‘falling.’ ‘plant Favorite Blossom Now.’ Go to the capital of Japan now. So, can we do that, please?”

This was a new side to Ana, Peggy thought privately – sharper maybe, and more observant… more _battle-ready._ But in a way that Peggy absolutely recognized, and _that_ was what caught the agent off-guard more than anything. Although she’d never heard Ana say anything in regards to what Peggy suddenly suspected, she had a niggling feeling that she had an idea of what she was soon going to learn about the redhead.

“Very well,” Peggy agreed slowly, glancing between her spouses. “Am I to assume that one of you already checked that my bag was packed and ready?”

“I did,” Edwin nodded.

“Good. Thank you.” She shrugged off her jacket and began to roll up her sleeves. “Now tell me what you need me to do so that we can get on Howard’s plane.”

* * *

Peggy wasn’t sure if it was a form of compromise or just further rushed planning that led to Howard still being their pilot even though Edwin was present. Honestly, she still wasn’t certain what was going on in general, just that Edwin wanted the two of them to be with Ana for whatever was coming next. She saw now that none of them really knew what was coming, and she dearly hoped that someone had more information than she did.

The plane Howard had chosen to fly was small – a leftover from the war days with benches on either side of the cabin. Peggy wasn’t sure she wanted to know how he’d acquired it, but she told herself it didn’t matter at the moment. It made it easier to talk to her spouses, and that was currently more important.

“You realize,” she began. “That if this is as sudden and as unplanned as it appears to be, this might well be the stupidest thing either of you have ever done.”

“It’s not,” Ana answered… and said nothing else.

“But _why_ are we going to Tokyo because of that message exactly?” she tried to ask again.

“Because of how it was addressed, Ana answered, her eyes thoughtful in a way that suggested she was lost in thoughts that were a hundred miles away. “To ‘AJ’ – my married name. I went from meeting Edwin to fleeing with him in five weeks; only my immediate family even knew about him.” She hesitated before tacking on as an afterthought, “Well, my family and my partner.”

“’Partner’?” Peggy repeated.

“In the resistance…” Ana elaborated hesitantly.

And here came the story that Peggy had never heard about her wife… what she’d anticipated since the message’s explanation.

“My older brother became involved in the resistance first, and he was certainly the most involved, but I, my sister, and other brother became involved too. I became more _heavily_ involved once I started working with a partner.

Edwin coming into my life just in time to _save_ my life… that was a… fluke. If the Nazis had realized what I’d been doing, what I knew and know…” An involuntary shudder ripped through Ana, and both of her spouses reached out to take her hands in theirs. “I wouldn’t have just been killed for being a Jew, I would’ve been… that is, faced information… extraction.”

“That’s just it,” Peggy broke in before _that_ awful thought could go any further. “Love, you’ve said before that your family is dead. And now you believe dead people are contacting you?” It was a tender subject, Peggy understood that, and she did her best to keep her tone attuned to it, but she knew suspicion was leaking into her gaze regardless.

“I don’t know what I believe about it,” Ana answered, and for the first time since Peggy had come home that afternoon, she looked… lost.

“Then have we considered,” carefully, Peggy mentioned what was to her the most obvious option. “That we might be walking into some sort of trap?”

“Yes,” Ana leaned her head back against the cool metal of the plane, let her eyes drift closed as she answered slowly, “But I also know that my family did not get proper funerals or death certificates… my partner did not get a fallen soldier’s condolences sent home to his family when he died. _If_ he died. Maybe he’s still alive; maybe a member of my family is… and as long as that question to there… I _cannot_ ignore this message.”

That was a sentiment that Peggy felt she’d heard too often the past few years – usually from Howard in regards to Steve – but it was something she had struggled with as well. She understood it. She squeezed Ana’s hand a little tighter, and on their wife’s other side, Edwin pulled the redhead that much closer.

Tucking Ana’s head beneath his chin, he met Peggy’s eyes over her head, and the agent was surprised to see all of her hesitations mirrored in his gaze. Yet Peggy swallowed a sigh, and they said nothing more. They were all three in this together. For better or worse. For Ana.

* * *

The sky was dark as midnight – and for a good reason – by the time the four of them reached Tokyo proper. They had changed into the only slightly more normal clothing of American tourists, but Peggy had to wonder how lost the affect was going to be given that Howard had landed on the outskirts of a field and they’d trekked a couple of miles into the city.

As they came to the first lighted area they’d encountered, Howard asked, “Does anyone know where we’re going?”

“I’ve never been here before,” Ana confessed, “But there was a… a loose network of sorts. Contacts everywhere, if you knew where to look, how to find them. My brother, Izsak, came here a time or two, and if the message is from who I think it must be, I _think_ I know where they will be.”

Peggy didn’t allow herself to dwell on how much conjecture had been in Ana’s statement.

“Lead the way, then,” Howard beckoned.

So Ana did – through the bustling, noisy city to a part of it that felt decidedly less than stellar. Scanning their surroundings warily, Edwin asked, “You’re certain this is the right way, my darling?”

“Yes. We’re nearly to the exact building.”

Ana led them down a particularly dreary avenue. It looked like it had been overtaken by a fire years ago, most of the buildings blackened or reduced to rubble. Howard started muttering something about rice paper walls and blast radii. Peggy opened her mouth to suggest that Ana’s intel was years old; maybe she’d forgotten it or gotten it confused. Instead, she nearly bumped into the redhead when she froze, whispering, “Oh, no…”

Ana had stopped, so they did too, and Peggy thought that they had probably found where the fire had originated from. All she saw was ashes, and only one small pile of rubble.

Her worry only grew from there when Ana announced quietly, “This was the building. I’m _certain_ these were the coordinates.”

“And now there’s nothing here,” Peggy sighed, stating the obvious and already trying to figure out where they were supposed to go from here.      

A shadow shifted in the darkness then, and Peggy had her gun in hand in the same instant. A man materialized, standing from where he’d been sitting on the pile of rubble as he said, “Well, that kinda hurts, Marge. I’m here, and I’ve even got company.”

“’Marge’…?” Peggy repeated, straining to see into the darkness. “Is that… Chief Thompson?!”

Edwin suddenly flipped on a torch, and Jack Thompson was left blinking back into the unexpected light. “Turn that off!” he snapped.

Doing her best to recover from the shock of seeing him here of all places, Peggy asked, “What are you doing here? Because it certainly doesn’t look like SSR business.”

“Turn that thing _off_!” Jack demanded a second time, and glowered at Edwin until he was obeyed. Only then did he admit to Peggy, “It’s not, but that’s the easiest excuse I had for getting away from the office as quickly as I needed to.”

“And why did you need to get away so quickly, and under false pretenses?” Peggy inquired hotly.

Jack stared at her, clearly debating something within his own mind before he swore, muttering, “I really didn’t wanna owe him.”

“Owe who?” Peggy asked.

Jack turned, beckoned them follow him to the pile of rubble he’d been sitting on. “My fiancé. I owe him a dollar – lost a bet when all three of you Jarvis-Hajnal-Carter’s showed up.”

Peggy picked her steps carefully around the rubble, noticing that it seemed far more strategically placed up close than it had at a distance. Peering closer in the darkness, she realized why. The pile hid a metal door – of the in-ground, storm cellar variety – from the sight of the road.

Jack glanced at Howard, ordering, “Stay here, and if someone heads towards you, tap three times on the door, then go for a lap around the block.”

Howard opened his mouth to object, but Edwin chose that moment to remark upon something that Peggy had, frankly, been a bit too frightened of to question. “Your _fiancé_ , Chief?!”

Jack’s lips thinned as he bent at the waist and tugged open the surprisingly silent metal door. “Believe me, we’re as surprised as you are. But we need each other to get out of this as… unscathed as possible, so,” straightening, Jack shrugged. “Yeah, fiancé.” Then he glanced at Ana, ordering with a smile suddenly flickering at the edges of his mouth. “After we get down there, close your eyes. Let me or somebody else lead you.”

“Why?” Ana asked suspiciously.

Jack tilted his head to the side, stared at her. “You wound me. I thought we bonded over our bullet wounds at Stark’s while we were both healing up. I thought we were friends. I thought you trus—”

A loud chorus of chatter broke out, passing by near the turn onto their avenue.

Jack’s entire demeanor changed as he herded first Ana, then Edwin down into the dark hole, hissing with quiet urgency, “Hurry down! Stay quiet.” He handed Howard the bottle of alcohol he’d previously been holding – his cover for lounging along the barren road. Peggy handed the genius the smallest of her guns, just in case, and followed her husband into the darkness. Jack came last, shutting the door over his head as he made his way down the ladder that gave way to the packed-dirt floor of an unlit tunnel.

They stayed still in the pitch black, silent until their eyes adjusted, and then Jack ordered Ana again, “Eyes closed.”

A string of thoughts played across Ana’s face before she rolled her eyes and did what he’d asked. Smiling in anticipation – at least if Peggy didn’t miss her mark – Jack took Ana’s shoulders and led her from behind through the narrow tunnel with Edwin, then Peggy, following close behind.

“It’s Jack,” the chief called out in a whisper right before they made a turn. “And I’ve got three friendlies.”

They made one turn, then a second, upon which they entered a smoky room, dimly lit by only four candles. Three candles were sitting one to a crate, spaced on either side of two thin pallets. A fourth candle set on a crate on the other side of the narrow room, with a trio of crates surrounding it.

Noticing all of these things came second to noticing the man standing rigidly in front of the makeshift table. His eyes were wary, alert, and exhausted as he stared at the three new arrivals out from under dark hair that fell nearly into his eyes. Most pressing, however, was the rifle the he held at the ready.

“You really don’t want to shoot any of these people,” Jack drawled, and Peggy could _hear_ a smile in his voice, the git. “Take a second look, bud.”

 _Could it be…_ Peggy wondered, realizing that she’d never even seen a picture of any of Ana’s family members. She wouldn’t recognize any of them if she did see them. Glancing away from the rifle, she checked Edwin’s expression as a gauge instead.

Her husband looked mostly startled, but he was also starting to smile.

_Maybe it was…_

“Put the gun down now, my friend,” Edwin recommended, and his tone was far too friendly, in Peggy’s opinion, in connection with what he’d just said.

“Jack!” Ana said sharply, sounding justifiably anxious, given Edwin’s words.

The gun dropped from the man’s hands with a suddenness that surprised Peggy in contrast to how fiercely he’d been clinging to it. Now he was staring at Ana with that same intensity.

“Shh…” Edwin soothed their wife, grinning as he stepped up and took Ana’s hands, leading her up to the man. “Take that off?” Edwin glanced at the man’s rifle, and with shaking hand he whipped the strap over his head and laid the rifle on a crate. “There now. Now then.” Edwin went behind Ana, gently shoved her into the man’s space.

She stumbled a step, and the man instinctively caught her by the forearms. The next second, he was holding her close in a crushing hug. Before their eyes, the gun-toting, sharp-eyed man softened, whispering in the same instant, “Ana!”

Ana’s eyes flew open, her expression bright enough to light up the whole room in that moment. Beside Peggy, even Jack was grinning broadly as he watched the siblings reunite, talking to and over one another in Hungarian.

“What’s his name?” Peggy asked Jack in a whisper, neither of them looking away from the scene in front of them.

“Izsak. He’s the oldest sibling.”

Peggy’s eyes widened as he realized… “And he’s _your_ fiancé?”

“Yeah…” Jack rubbed the back of his neck, muttering, “That’s gonna be a fun thing to watch her figure out, isn’t it?” He shrugged, adding, “But, as it happens, she’s got more to figure out, and hopefully _that_ thing is going to be considered before the fiancé thing.”

“What else is there?” Peggy asked curiously. _More family members who’ve survived?_

Jack grinned as if he could read her mind, before either of them could say anything, Edwin came over and led Peggy towards Ana and her brother.

“…And this is our wife, Peggy Carter,” Ana told Izsak, as if Peggy had walked into the middle of the conversation. She had, after all.

Izsak looked in surprise between the three of them, but whatever he was thinking, he didn’t say it. Instead, he took her hand, shook it gently. Peggy tried not to notice that he had a callous on his trigger finger from frequent use. Tried not to notice that he looked as if he was still fighting in the war right this second.

“It’s nice to meet you, Missus Carter.”

“And you, Mr. Hajnal.”

Peggy smiled at her brother-in-law, and Ana let out a sound that was nearly a squeal, grinning widely and looking like she might’ve spun around in a thrilled little circle – Peggy had seen her do it before – had their bene more room in the cramped space. “oh, I never even dared imagine that my family,” she gestured to her spouses. “Might be able to meet my family!” She beamed at Izsak.

“Ana, this is only the half of it,” Izsak said, looking as if he could nearly cry with joy.

Ana’s brow knit in confusion as she admitted, “I don’t understand.”

Izsak put a hand between Ana’s shoulder blades, turning her towards one of the pallets, and propelling her the few steps it took to get to the one nearest the door. It was, Peggy thought, to her own shame that it had taken her this long to realize that people lay on the pallets. A tiny Japanese woman lay on one, and on the other a dark-haired woman and a man who, she thought with a pang in her heart, looked like…

She froze before taking one, two, three steps closer, drawn there just as much as Ana was.

No. It wasn’t just that this man “looked like,” it was that this man _was_ –

She heard herself gasp his name, clenched her hands into fists just to feel something and stay alert as her knees tried to buckle.

“ _Michael_.”

* * *

Izsak’s hands on Ana were cool in the chilled tunnels, but she forgot to be concerned about that when she realized who he was leading her to.

 _Naomi?!_ Her younger and only sister, her first and best friend, the confidant she’d poured her heart out to – even after her flight from Hungary, in letters she’d sent without ever knowing if they’d been received. And here she was, alive and breathing, even if she was asleep.

Ana crouched down beside her, fully intending to wake her – only to hear Peggy gasp the name “Michael.” Startled – _really? Michael too?!_ – Ana’s gaze jumped from Naomi, to Peggy, and finally to the man lying beside Naomi.

His, too, was another familiar face. Ana looked back at Peggy, studying her wife in the dim light. There were tears brimming in the brown eyes, tears that Ana imagined mirrored those in her own eyes. Peggy’s gaze was riveted on him.

“You know him,” Ana said, not even bothering to make it a question.

Peggy nodded, answering in a voice choked with unshed tears, “He’s my brother.”

Ana quickly tucked her feet underneath herself, kneeling before she fell onto her backside. Through her surprise, she laughed. “Of course he is!”

Finally Peggy looked over at her, something in Ana’s tone making her brow crease as she asked, “Do you… surely you don’t know him?”

“I do, actually.” Ana grinned at him, still sleeping away beside her little sister – _and_ that _was something to question later._ “I never knew his last name – sometimes ignorance can be a literal lifesaver in the type of work we did – but, in the resistance, he was my partner.”

Peggy gaped. Still standing behind his wives, Edwin snorted, repeating Ana’s sentiment with laughter and a hint of disbelief. “Of course he was.”

Still grinning, Ana reached for Peggy’s hand across the pallet. With the other hand, she swept her sister’s hair out of her face, ready to wake her. Ana frowned instead.

Looking over her shoulder at Izsak, she said, “She’s burning up!”

Peggy frowned, pressing a hand to Michael’s forehead. “So is he.”

“Why?” Ana worriedly asked of Izsak, trying not to become afraid for them.

“That is the question,” Jack spoke up succinctly.

Ana twisted around further to see him crouched down beside the second pallet, tucking the blanket around the shoulders of the Japanese woman. There was a look on his face, and an undercurrent to his tone, that Ana didn’t remember hearing before – and she’d seen him cranky and upset often enough while they healed together from their separate shootings.

Edwin’s eyes were narrowed, observing Jack as well, and Ana would’ve _paid_ to have been able to see directly into her husband’s thoughts at that moment as he asked almost gently, “What’s her name?”

“She calls herself Lydia,” Jack answered. “Says it’s easier than trying to teach most people how to pronounce her Japanese name.”

“Do you know what her given name is, though?” Peggy pressed.

Jack snorted depreciatingly as he put a hand to her forehead and checked her temperature, thinking something that neither of them could guess. “No.”

Edwin cleared his throat, looking between Izsak, Jack, and Lydia. Clearly he was debating asking the obvious question.

Peggy took the bullet for him, instead. “You three are engaged then?”

“Unfortunately,” Izsak muttered.

Ana’s head snapped towards her brother so quickly her neck twinged, and she winced, though she wasn’t sure if it was from the physical discomfort or from the realization of what sort of story was likely unfolding in front of them.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Peggy asked.

Jack and Izsak both sighed heavily, but it was Jack who took it upon himself to explain. “We met Lydia separately during the war, and during that time both of us,” he nodded towards Izsak. “Started corresponding with her… maybe with interest in… pursuing her. She’s beautiful, she’s kind, she’s… determined. What’s not to like?”

Izsak took up the story, continuing, “A few weeks ago, I received word from Lydia that she was becoming ill – which wouldn’t have been a problem but for the fact that she was still in hiding, wanted for crimes against her country. Working with the Allies, that is. She’s been living in the old tunnels since the end of the war; she didn’t receive any of my letters, but since she could still send word to me in Sweden – most of the time – I still received her… SOS of sorts. So Naomi and I came with medicine for her, with hopes of maybe concocting a plan to get her out of the country. By the time we arrived, she was _much_ sicker than her letter had suggested; we ran out of medication quickly. In the meantime, Naomi fell ill. I got word to Michael who, similarly to myself and Lydia, had kept in contact with Naomi, since you left Hungary, Ana. He came from where he’s been in Ireland, bringing more medicine. And falling ill himself.” Izsak sighed a second time, running a hand through his shaggy, dirty hair as he moved to sit beside his rifle. “I was starting to panic, to tell you the truth. I went through Lydia’s letters, hoping to find the identity of someone else she trusted, someone else who had what it took to get the needed medicine and come to Japan, and by then I didn’t feel it was optional; we have to get them out of Japan, or someone’s going to die down here already in the dirt. I stumbled upon her letters to Jack.”

“Read through them,” Jack broke in, a thread of accusation in his tone.

Izsak shrugged, as if maybe they’d had this conversation a dozen times. “I had to know I could trust you – at the very least to have Lydia’s best interests at heart, and to bring the needed medicine.”

“So here I am,” Jack finished. “Here we all are.”

“You’ve been here for a full two weeks?” Peggy asked Jack, thinking back to when he’d left New York.

Jack nodded.

“Are you out of medicine again?” Edwin asked worriedly. “Because the only thing we have is a first aid kit and acetaminophen.”

“No, not yet,” Izsak answered. “We’ve got a little medicine left.”

“Enough for about three days,” Jack added flatly. “And there isn’t anyone left we’d dare to call in.”

“So you sent word to me,” Ana said softly, looking worriedly up at her brother.

Izsak nodded, looking terribly sorry to have drawn her into this.

“Why?” Edwin asked, almost shrewdly, and Ana was now willing to bet she _knew_ what he was thinking. “If you don’t want or need medicine, why are we here?”

“Extraction,” Jack said shortly. “Izsak swears up and down that you two can manage that.”

 Edwin drew in a deep breath, raking both hands down over his face before he asked tensely, “What makes you think we can do that?”

“I’ve seen you do it!” Izsak reminded him sharply.

“That was not exactly a successful endeavor, as you will recall!”

“Apparently no one died; I call that a success.”

“He nearly did,” Ana reminded Izsak softly, brushing a fingertip gently down Naomi’s cheek. _What had they all gotten themselves into?_

“Would _you_ like to chance being hung, Izsak?” Edwin inquired, full of faux patience as the tension in his expression grew.

Izsak, to Ana’s surprise and horror, didn’t even blink before he said, “I will if it means Lydia gets out of here.”

Edwin stared at his brother-in-law for a very long moment before he drew in a breath, turning his back on them all as he released it.

That was the moment that Ana saw that they were going to do this. One way or another, with or without the help of every one of those who were here… someone was going to attempt to get all nine of them out of here.

“ _Pokol_ ,” Ana murmured to herself, squeezing Naomi’s hand gently.

Izsak peered at her from underneath his hair, sounding weary all the way into his bones as he informed her, “I was really hoping for you to have something more helpful to say.”

“Such as?” Peggy asked, looking at Ana as if she knew that there was something more that she didn’t yet know.

Izsak looked at Peggy in confusion as he asked her, “Do you have _any_ idea what your wife did during the war, Missus Carter?”

“ _Agent_ Carter,” Peggy shot back – her rebuttal when she felt attacked in some way.

“Extraction,” Ana butted in before an actual argument could start brewing. If they were going to do this, they all needed to get on the same page. “Of sorts. I helped move fellow Jews into safer areas as things began to get more dangerous for us.”

“And if you can do that right underneath the noses of the Nazis,” Izsak told her. “Then I have absolute faith that we can get ourselves out of here now.”

Ana clenched her teeth together to keep herself from saying something she might regret – like the fact that she was none too sure. Izsak didn’t need to hear that, though. To someone who knew him – to practically anyone, probably – it was obvious that he was hanging on by a thread, trying to care for a trio of sick people without the proper tools, trying to find a way for them to leave their only safe spot in hopes of helping them reach an even safer one. He wanted a better life for these people, obviously, and this was supposed to be the first step in getting them there. Ana wasn’t sure she had it in her to take that away from him – from all of those counting on it.

“Are Lydia, Michael, and Naomi sedated, or have they been sleeping like this on their own?” she asked, the means to an end of a different train of thought.

“A little bit of both,” Jack admitted. “We’ve been giving them alcohol if they wake up too sick to sleep.”

“Are they in pain when they’re awake?” Edwin asked. He thought Ana was trying to figure out what ailment they had – not a bad idea, but not her thoughts exactly.

“Headaches, chills, nausea,” Izsak recited. “If they’re awake enough to, they vomit when they eat nearly anything.”

“I really think it’s influenza,” Jack said. “That’s what we’ve been treating it as.”

“But down here in this dark, cold, and wet,” Edwin pointed out what they all were thinking. “They’re never going to recover, not even just from influenza. It’s going to get worse, not better.”

“So we move them to somewhere better,” Jack said. “Preferably off of this god-forsaken continent.”

“To where?” Peggy asked. “America?”

“Of course,” Jack answered. “Back to New York, with us. We’ve got lives there; we can help them set up lives of their own too.”

“Is that what _they_ want?” Ana asked, getting back around to what she’d originally been thinking of. “If the three of them have been ill or sedated, how much of all of this plan are they aware of?”

Izsak and Jack shared a look before Izsak volunteered, “Lydia woke up once enough to realize that Jack and I were both here; we were able to explain the very basics of the plan that we’ve got so far.”

“Anything beyond ‘let’s marry the American to gain easy access to citizenship?” Edwin asked dryly.

Jack winced tellingly. Izsak glowered at his brother-in-law until Edwin almost growled. “That does not constitute a _plan_ , Izsak!”

Izsak snorted. “It starts to be one once you have a pilot and your expert of a sister working with you.”

“Expert on what?” Ana asked, hoping she was wrong concerning what she thought he was referencing.

“The routes you used before, to move people through and into safer areas.”

Ana dropped her head into her hands, groaning her brother’s name. _This was the same sort of half-baked planning that had nearly gotten Edwin killed!_ “Firstly, my expertise on those routes begins and ends in Europe. Secondly, that route is the exactly the _opposite_ of the one we want!”

“But you can do it,” Izsak insisted, a desperation in his eyes that Ana knew no one in the room could miss.

“Maybe.” To Ana’s surprise, that thoughtful admission came from Edwin. “The plane we flew in on is meant to handle about _half_ of the passengers we’d be asking it to carry back to the States. But. _If_ Mr. Stark can calculate the exact amount of fuel we’ll need to fly no further than absolutely necessary… _If_ we leave everything here but the clothes on our backs… Then _maybe_ we can make it across the ocean.”

“Then that’s what we will do,” Izsak said immediately.

Peggy didn’t miss a beat, declaring, “I don’t like it. There are _far_ too many ‘maybes’ in that plan.”

“It’s the only plan we have!” Izsak snapped.

Peggy took a deep breath, staring at him as she did so. “Maybe,” she suggested instead. “We could get to the Japanese coast instead, then… _find_ a boat that Jack could captain—”

“No,” Ana and Jack said together, likely, Ana assumed, for very different reasons.

Jack went on to say, “I already thought of that, but it’s farther to walk with very weak people. It’s… riskier,” because of stealing the boat, he meant. “It’s slower travelling, and in that we’d be in broad daylight _much_ more, and a much easier target because of it. To cross the Pacific, flying is our better option.”

“ _Especially_ since we already have the plane,” Ana seconded. That was, at least, one problem – sort of – out of the way.

“So we are most definitely taking a sardine can of a plane across the ocean with the _hope_ that it doesn’t fail and dump us all in the Pacific to drown?” Peggy asked, an air of disbelief in her tone.

Edwin, Jack, and Ana all nodded as Izsak pointed out, “It’s happened before.”

He meant it as a comfort to the stranger who had waltzed in with  his sister and brother-in-law, Ana knew that, but Peggy rounded on him, snapping, “ _My spouses’_ escape is hardly a stellar model to use! They lived, yes, but – unlike you – I’ve seen the remnants of what _died_ inside of them because of that escape. So, if you want to do this, I dearly hope you’re ready to pay the price that it will require.”

“As long as Lydia and Naomi live, it will be worth it,” Izsak insisted.

Seeing that Peggy was about to continue arguing, Ana pressed down the panic trying to fill her lungs until she couldn’t breathe. “He’s right,” she said, barely loud enough to be noticed, but she knew Peggy would hear her and take her word before anyone else’s in this matter.

“Hear, hear,” Jack agreed quietly from beside Lydia.

Gravely, Edwin added, “I’d have to concur, Peggy.”

Peggy sighed. “I’m not saying I won’t do it, or that I won’t help however I can; I’m saying I think it’s ludicrous, and I think someone’s going to get hurt.” She glanced at the people laying on pallets and added, “Possibly worse than they already are.”

“Then that’s a risk we have to take,” Jack said firmly.

No one disagreed this time.

“Very well,” Edwin drew in a breath, moving onto the next point in their planning. “That means we need to make it to the plane on the edge of town. I know we have two well people to every ill person to help them along, but you two are the ones who have been with them. Do you think they can walk a couple of miles undetected?”

There was a pause that Ana liked not at all before Jack said, “If we let them sober up first, yeah.”

“Most likely,” Izsak muttered.

Peggy snorted. Ana bit the inside of her cheek, growing more and more worried.

“We’ll have to take that risk, then, too,” Edwin said on a sigh.

Jack’s tone was clearly hesitant even in the midst of his determination as he asked dryly, “So are we really just waiting for the three of them to sober up before we make a break for it?”

“There is…” Edwin began. “One more possible issue at hand.”

Ana felt a stone sink heavily into her stomach as he glanced at her and she realized exactly where he was going with that thought. “Naomi and Michael…” she asked Izsak. “They are… together?”

“Yes,” Izsak’s expression became pinched as he, too, began to understand. “And in love, by all appearances.”

Edwin cut to the real chase. “Do they have a third?”

Izsak scowled. “No.”

That was both a good and bad thing, the three of them knew. It meant that they, like Izsak and Lydia, could marry an American to gain easier access to citizenship in the States. _The American presently available to them, though…_

Ana looked down at her sister and winced. If this was what they were really going to do, she sincerely hoped her little sister was braver than she had ever been.

Izsak sighed, put his head in his hands for a moment. Meeting Ana’s eyes again, he asked, “You said Mr. Stark was here with you?”

“Yes.” Mentally, she corrected him distantly, _Edwin said that._

The disconnectedness that she allowed to grow over her emotions now, that she had often clung to when  the worry or grief or _feelings_ became too much… it would worry Edwin and Peggy when they noticed, but she couldn’t bring herself to care too much. It was what she needed to do in order to do and be the best that she could as they went into this. She couldn’t be anyone’s priority right now, not when this line of questioning mean that she’d just made Naomi hers.

Izsak licked his dry lips, asking, “Yet you called Miss Carter your wife, so… you divorced Mr. Stark?”

“We did – the moment Edwin and I secured our American citizenship.”

Across the pallet, Peggy began to look between them all with darting eyes. She had been told, in a passing sort of way, that her spouses had once married Mr. Stark for a very short time in order to secure their safety and citizenship, but it had all happened years ago, and the marriage meant nothing to them. Peggy knew that; Ana was sure the mention of it was not what was bothering the agent.

Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed Peggy squeezing Michael’s hand protectively, and Ana’s heart clenched at the same time. She squeezed the woman’s other hand, supporting, being there to share the worry, and showing she understood. _Oh, love…_

“And he doesn’t have anyone of his own right now?” Izsak checked.

It sounded like Edwin struggled not to snort at the idea as he again got to what was really being asked. “No, he doesn’t, and for all of Howard Stark’s ridiculousness, I will be terribly surprised if he’s unwilling to help Naomi.”

“And Michael?” Peggy asked, though it sounded nearly like a demand to Ana’s ears.

Edwin hesitated before agreeing, “…And Michael by default.”

Their short marriage to their employer hadn’t taught them much about Howard Stark, but one of the most earnest conversations Ana had ever had with him had been about their shared – and, in his case, hidden – ethnicity. It was, Mr. Stark had revealed, that guilt over hiding who he was that had led to him being so willing to go the extra mile to help Edwin and Ana – a Jew.

Ana could see that Edwin was thinking of that conversation now, thinking that Mr. Stark would react the same way – and Ana believed that he would too.

She just wasn’t sure how she felt about it for her little sister’s sake.

“That’s good enough, then, right?” Jack asked, an impatience in his tone that nearly set Ana’s teeth on edge.

Izsak looked at the blond, out of the corner of his eye, apparently thinking along the same lines as Ana as he pointed out, “Not everyone’s sole concern can be Lydia, Jack.”

Jack had the grace to look at least somewhat abashed – for all of a moment, before he defended, “I’m not trying to be insensitive, but we’re kind of backed into a corner here –”

“A corner,” Ana pointed out evenly, “That you said yourself we can’t get out of until they wake up.”

“And besides that,” Peggy said thoughtfully. “We can’t just… make up Howard’s mind for him regarding a whole second marriage. He needs to be consulted, of course, as do Michael and Naomi.” Peggy bit the inside of her cheek, glanced down at Naomi and Michael. Clearly she was thinking something, and then she suddenly released her brother’s hand and stood, muttering, “Excuse me.”

“Where are you going?” Edwin asked quickly.

“To help Howard keep watch.”

Meaning she wanted to have a conversation with Mr. Stark about… _what, precisely?_

“Peggy…” Ana began hesitantly.

“Let her go.” Every eye swung to Izsak as he spoke up firmly. He looked away, rubbing at a spot on his rifle that he couldn’t possibly have seen in the muted light. He sighed softly. “Howard Stark is a sometimes difficult man to entrust one’s sibling to. If there’s something he needs to hear, let her say it to him.”

 No one else said a word, and Peggy nodded her thanks to Izsak before slipping back into the tunnels with her rifle still in hand.

* * *

Peggy purposefully let what little rubble remained within the ash crunch under her feet as she approached Howard. He waited to look away from the alleyway in front of him until she moved to sit down beside him. He wordlessly offered her the bottle of alcohol. She took it, and rolled her eyes when she realized how near unto empty the millionaire had left it.

“How’re things looking down there?” he inquired.

 Peggy swallowed half of what remained in the bottle.

Howard blinked. “That bad?”

Peggy shook her head and allowed the burn of the whiskey to wake her up a bit more than she already was. She smiled, just saying, “My brother’s alive down there?”

Howard froze, then grinned broadly. “Peg, that’s great!”

“M-hm. So are a couple of Ana’s siblings -  her sister and older brother.”

“Her instincts were right.” Clearly he was pleased; they all were, of course. “That’s amazing for her.”

“M-hm.”

Howard eyed her before asking, “Okay. What else is there?”

“There’s seven people down there; three are ill. Besides that…” she took a deep breath, internally debating once again if this was her place to bring this up. It wasn’t. She did it anyway. This was she could give Howard a fair warning, and, besides, it was _for Michael_. “You recall,” _Stupid, stupid question, Margret Carter!_ “How precisely you helped Edwin and Ana escape Hungary?”

That question gave Howard pause before he answered slowly, “Sure…”

The two of them had never talked about it before, really, not necessarily avoidance by design… it had just conveniently never come up. Now she was bringing it up. “I think you may very well be asked to… do… that again.”

Howard abruptly snatched the bottle back from her hand, telling her, “You’re going to have to be more specific. Which part?”

Peggy inhaled, stared out at the bland landscape of the burnt alley. “All of it – the flying, the fleeing… the marrying.”

Howard swallowed the last gulp of alcohol, draining it of its last drop, and Peggy had to snatch the bottle back before he sat it down with a clatter that would’ve drawn attention to them. “ _How_ did we reach that conclusion already?!”

“Precedent, apparently.”

Howard laughed sharply. “That is a terrible idea.”

“We are backed into a corner; it’s our only… only _possibly_ useful idea.”

“And what do my perspective fiancees think of this plan?” he asked hollowly.

“They… are not… precisely… awake,” she admitted.

He turned to her, incredulity plain across his features as he asked, “And who are they ‘precisely’?”

“Ana’s sister, Naomi, and my brother, Michael.”

Howard cringed, drew in a deep breath. “They’re already… a thing?”

“According to Izsak, yes.”

Howard took another breath, and Peggy could nearly _see_ a weight begin to press down on his shoulders. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know what was going on his mind at that moment, but what came out of his mouth was, “Well, that’s good.”

“Howard,” she hesitated, trying to find the words to ask him just how _not_ alright with this he was.

He said something else before she could, changing the subject a bit as he asked, “But I get the feeling you came up here to say something… more, didn’t you?”

There was a knowing glint in Howard’s eyes at that moment, but it felt wrong for her to tell him what she’d come up here to say. Yet now he wanted to hear it. She sighed. “Just… be kind, please. This is my brother we’re talking about – and,” _interesting thought, this_. “My sister-in-law, in fact.”

Howard smiled at her, but there was no light in his gaze – and it had nothing to do with the darkness of the night. “There it is. I’ll be nice to ‘em, Peg, don’t you worry.” He patted her on the shoulder, again changing the subject as he said, “You ought to switch out with somebody, and go to sleep; it’s been a long day.”

“It has,” Peggy agreed with a nod. “But that’s not the way it works. You were the first one out here, you’re the first one back in. Go on now.”

Howard nodded, eased onto his feet, and disappeared into the tunnels. A few minutes later, Izsak sat down beside her.

She was surprised to see him, and admonished quietly, “You should be sleeping.”

“So should you.”

She wasn’t going to argue with him. He might’ve been her brother-in-law, but he was also a stranger to her, and a fully-grown man besides.

He smiled tiredly at her. “This way, we can elbow each other awake if we must.”

She thought he meant it, but she also saw that he was… making light of their situation. It made her think of the way Ana had described him in the past – “the war had made him angry… bitter… changed. He had stopped teasing and laughing.” Peggy was pleased to think that she had seen a glimmer of that man, even here and now. She smiled in return, sure she looked nearly as tired as he did, and allowed herself to relax back a bit on her rocky perch.

Izsak looked down the alley as he asked her, “Did you tell Howard Stark what you wanted to?”

Her eyebrows drew together as she wondered again what Howard was thinking about it all, but she nodded. “I believe so.”

Izsak nodded as well, satisfied with that answer. “Good.”

Then they lapsed into silence – until a couple of minutes later when he sighed softly of boredom… and elbowed her in the side.

* * *

With Peggy and Izsak outside, Jarvis volunteered, to stay awake inside to look after the sick while the others slept. Jack lay on the pallet beside Lydia and fell into the instant, deep sleep of an exhausted man. Ana lay down beside her sister and drifted off as well. Howard lay down between the two pallets, thinking more that he might be able to help Jarvis than that he might be able to sleep.

He _tried_ to sleep, but he didn’t expect to be able to – and it had nothing to do with his packed-dirt mattress. He could hear Michael snoring softly, and Naomi breathing – sometimes raggedly. Every time her breathing changed, Howard opened his eyes, and they were both _right there_.

He did not know these people – had never even _seen_ either of them before this night – and yet when they woke up properly he was going to, really, propose to them, and, God help them all, he was apparently their only option. He hated this. Probably because he remembered all too well what he – and Ana and Jarvis – had gone through the last time this… scenario had played out, as it were.

Maybe that was why he felt so instantly, inexplicably… protective over Naomi and Michael. He’d long harbored the secret worry that he had somehow made the transition into America worse for his then-spouses, Ana and Jarvis, but he had already promised himself that if this thing with Naomi and Michael was going to happen, he was going to find a way to be… _better_ for them. Somehow. In whatever way that might be, whatever way they might need.

But that didn’t mean he had any idea what to do when Naomi began to thrash and whimper in earnest in her sleep.

Howard and Ana both sat up, and he watched Ana blink the sleep from her eyes as she shook her sister’s shoulder, whispered her name.

Naomi was muttering in Hebrew, he realized, and he thought he picked out the words, “ _No, no! Let me go, Dmitri! Please!_ ”

Later, he would think to ask who Dmitri was. But when Naomi lashed out, for once instinctive motion kicked in first, and he reached across Michael, grabbing her wrist before she could hit Ana. Her muttering turned into a wail. “ ** _Stop_** _!”_

“Let go of her,” Ana hissed, her tone sharpened with stress to become more than a whisper.

Howard heard shifting from behind him as he obeyed, registered the noise as Chief Thompson being woken up as well. He payed him no mind, though, watching as Ana lay back down beside Naomi and held her little sister tightly. Naomi’s arms were trapped between the two women, but Ana kept shifting. It took him a second to realize that Naomi was still trying to strike out and Ana was absorbing those blows, holding on to her sister.

His heart squeezed, though he wasn’t sure if it was with his own uncertainty or strictly for the sisters. Yet in time, Naomi quieted, her wailing trailing off into sobs as she partially woke up. Ana eased her arms away from her, trying to return Naomi to a proper sleeping position.

“Ana?” Naomi said blearily, her eyes already sliding closed as she curled closer to Michael and went to sleep.

“Yes, dear one,” Ana’s voice cracked as she smoothed her hand over her sister’s burning forehead. “I’m here.”

Howard glanced away from the tender scene, feeling he had no place n the moment as Ana rolled her eyes towards the ceiling to keep from crying. He waited until she moved to lay back down  before he asked in a whisper, “Who’s Dmitri?”

“One of her husbands. Izsak said both of Naomi’s husbands are dead.”

Howard heard something in her tone that made him wonder if there was something _else_ concerning Naomi’s previous husbands, but he didn’t ask, didn’t care to pry. It never occurred to him that he might have rather had that conversation with Ana rather than anyone else.

* * *

Being completely unmedicated, Michael woke up first, in the middle of the next day.

Edwin and Howard were out keeping watch while Jack and Izsak caught up on sleep beside Lydia, and Ana and Peggy stayed exactly where they wanted to be – watching over their siblings.

They had been nibbling on bits of food in what would pass as their lunch when Michael moaned. Peggy snapped to attention, moving to his bedside with a glass of water in hand. They had been half-forcing sips of water into them when they’d woken enough, but neither Michael nor Naomi had gained consciousness enough to register their family as anything more than a fever dream. Now Michael was suddenly struggling to sit upright.

“Hey, be careful,” Peggy admonished softly, dropping to her knees and helping him sit up with her free arm.

His head turned slowly towards the sound of her voice, eyes rolling as he tried, and finally managed, to focus. “Peg?”

She grinned, feeling tears start to well in her eyes. “Hello, Michael.”

To her memory, her brother had always been a subdued – in fact, nearly depressed – drunk. This time, he turned his head into her shoulder, asking in a muffled voice, “You’re real, Peggy? You’re here?”

“Yes, Michael,” she smiled.

“Are we dead?”

She laughed, the noise watery even to her own ears. “No, Michael. Not yet, at any rate.”

“Mm, good,” he hummed, before his eyes cleared a bit more with a different thought as he tried to sit up on his own again. His words continued to slur as he ordered, “Careful, Peg, this is contagious.”

“I don’t care,” she announced, and emotional, irrational thought that it was, she found it was true nonetheless. She squeezed him a little tighter around the shoulders just for emphasis.

Ana got up from her seat and leaned around Peggy, being more sensible about things than her spouse as she pressed a hand to Michael’s forehead to check his temperature. “Your fever hasn’t broken yet, I don’t believe, but it does feel _better_.”

Michael stared at her, eyes wide as he was apparently shocked into silence.

Ana chuckled, kneeling at Peggy’s side. “Hello, my old friend.”

“Ana?”

“Yes.”

Michael blinked, and stared a bit longer. His eyebrows drew together as he glanced between the two women, asking, “You two know each other?”

“Yes,” they chorused together.

Peggy took Ana’s hand in hers, kissed her knuckles gently as Michael began to ask, “How do… oh. You’re married?”

He looked so very hopeful that Ana and Peggy both chuckled as the latter answered, “Yes, Michael.”

As hopeful as he’d looked, he suddenly became just as concerned, his feelings playing across his face like a movie reel thanks to his imbibed state. “Not to Fred?” he all but demanded of her.

Peggy shuddered before she could think to stop it. “No, not to Fred.”

With twinkling eyes, Ana said teasingly, “To ‘that stuck-up limey’ that I met all those years ago.”

“That’s not what I said about him,” Michael objected, still clearly under the influence of his drink.

“I’m not going to _repeat_ what you said about him.”

“Michael!” Peggy chastised at the idea that her brother had once been so harsh towards her husband.

“I could’ve done for you, Ana, what he did, that’s all I’ve ever thought about it,” Michael told her.

“That would _never_ have been the same.” Ana very nearly wrinkled her nose at the idea. Peggy chuckled, not at all bothered by the conversation as she saw so much of herself – so much _siblinghood_ – in the way that Ana was handling this drunken Michael. Ana hummed, glancing at the woman lying beside Michael. “Besides, you have your chance now.”

Michael turned towards Naomi, smiling gently as he found her hand under the blanket. “Yeah, I do – and no offense, Ana, but she makes me happier than you ever came close to. I see now that marrying you would’ve meant sacrificing a much better love.”

There was the more solemn Michael that Peggy had been anticipating.

“For both of us,” Ana mused. “The way that you looked at her just now is the way Edwin has always looked at me.” She grinned at Peggy. “And now her also.”

Michael looked between the two women with a soft smile, but his eyes told a bit of a different story. He was studying them, trying to puzzle out how Peggy and her spouses… worked. Peggy let him. She had been trying to figure out how she’d secured the love of these two people for months now; let Michael take a crack at it if he wanted to.

“That’s good,” he said, moving slowly to lie back down. “I’m truly happy for you both.”

“Are you ‘happy for’ me as well, oh brother-in-law?” In the doorway, Edwin was trying to tease Michael, but he was, Peggy thought, tired enough that his tone wasn’t just right for it.

Thinly, only half as amused as Peggy hoped Edwin had meant for him to be, Michael smiled. “I suppose so, though I can’t say I know you nearly as well as I know these two.”

“True enough.” Edwin stepped properly into the room, seeming to become more agitated as he did so. Peggy realized why when he said, “Ana, Mr. Stark asked for you to be the one to join him in keeping watch next.”

Ana nodded, then paused when she had straightened, looking hesitantly at Naomi. Michael did an impressive job of glaring at her while a smile played at the edges of his mouth. “Mine. You go ‘way.”

Ana raised her eyebrows at him, snorting.

“We’ll look after them both,” Peggy promised, including Edwin as her partner in the endeavor.

He nodded, then so did Ana before she slipped aboveground.

Watching her antsy husband start to pace, Peggy suggested, “I’m sure Howard just wanted to give her a glimpse of the sun within the next twenty-four hours, and without prompting she would stay down here with her siblings the entire time.”

She was sure of none of Howard’s motives whatsoever, but the idea seemed to calm Edwin a bit. He stilled enough to sit down on a crate and give her a rueful smile. “Perhaps,” he allowed, then hesitated before he admitted, “But I just can’t seem to adjust to the idea of _Ana_ – our Ana – being a part of this world.” He gestured to the dug-out walls surrounding them. “Espionage and spies and war and… and Ana, working right there in the middle of it all.”

“And she was terribly good at what she did, too,” Michael piped up from his pallet.

That was the wrong thing to say, Peggy thought, and she bit back the very _sibling_ -like desire to roll her eyes at Michael.

“I’m sure she’s fine,” Peggy assured Edwin again, leaving Michael’s side to sit beside her husband and put her hand in his. “Besides… in a way I’m not surprised that this movement – that these… capabilities – are a part of her past.”

“Why on earth not?!” Edwin asked with wide eyes.

Peggy hummed and, secure in the idea that she was effectively alone with him and Michael, kissed his cheek. “Because, Edwin, you have a type.”

Edwin’s eyebrows drew together as his tired mind connected the dots of what she meant. “You think she’s… like you?”

Peggy hesitated, fearing that was far too much of an oversimplification of her thoughts, but after a moment she agreed haltingly, “Yes, and no.”

Michael interrupted before Edwin could ask for clarification. “Just what are you capable of, Peg? If you didn’t marry Fred and your other boyfriend, what did you do with yourself?”

Peggy bit back a nervous little grin, informing him rather proudly, “I took the SOE job after we were told you were presumed KIA. I worked my way up, so to speak, and now I’m all but officially running the New York City Strategic Scientific Reserve under the inevitable male letterhead – this letterhead being Chief Thompson over there.” She grinned, seeing her brother’s smile grow the longer she spoke. “So _that_ is what I ‘did with myself’ rather than marrying a couple of idiot boys."

Michael chuckled weakly. “Very good. I’m glad that happened in your life, Peg.” He closed his eyes, and Peggy began to think he’d gone back to sleep; then he opened his eyes, and they were darker and more frightened then Peggy ever remembered him being as he asked quietly, “Peg, what’s going to happen to us now?”

Peggy frowned and swallowed as she glanced at Edwin, then back to Michael. “That’s a conversation I’d rather you had with Howard Stark. In fact…” she stood to her feet, grabbed Izsak’s rifle. “I’ll go take his place so he can come talk to you.”

She didn’t look at her brother as she left, didn’t want to see the understanding and conflicting thoughts and emotions as they dawned on him.

* * *

Howard was clenching and unclenching his fists as he walked back through the tunnel and dragged a crate over to sit beside Michael and Naomi’s pallet. Michael watched him, clearly struggling to achieve sobriety – at least mentally – over the drink that had been dulling his illness for Howard-didn’t-know-how-long. “Are you nervous?” Michael asked Howard dully.

Howard nearly snorted. “Yeah.”

“Why? Your life isn’t the one depending on a lunatic, alcoholic, millionaire idiot.”

“No,” he allowed. He glanced around – Peg and Ana outside, Thompson, Izsak, Lydia, Naomi sleeping. Jarvis with his back to them staring at a wall as he tried to give them an illusion of privacy. Howard did sigh then, said what was on his mind regardless of his audience. “But I’ve been down this road, and I’ll admit that I’m not a fan of where it went before.”

“Oh?” Michael seemed torn between curiosity and wariness. “How so?”

“How do you know… I mean, why do you think… that I’m ‘a lunatic, alcoholic, millionaire idiot?” he asked instead.

Michael bristled, stared at Howard for a long moment. “As I kept in contact with Naomi – extraordinarily sporadically, most of the time – in one of her first letters after Ana got to America, she said she had received a letter from Ana—”

“With that description of me inside it?” Howard smiled, a little sad, and nearly bitter – far too not-drunk to be having this odd heart to heart. “I thought so.” He tilted his head, stared at Michael. “Do you know how long it took me to realize that she felt that way? That in the middle of everything else unfamiliar, I… unnerved her too? We were already divorced; my time to… consciously fix it was basically over, and I certainly couldn’t go about it the same way I would’ve before the divorce. I’m not saying I ever loved them _as_ spouses – I didn’t, and I don’t – I’m saying I could’ve been better to the people in that marriage within the _context_ of that marriage. I guess what I’m _really_ getting at is that you don’t have to worry about yourself or Naomi or any marriage that might get you out of here. I’ll do better this time. Promise.” He paused and drew in a breath before asking, “Does that make sense?”

Michael hesitated a beat too long. “Maybe. Sort of.” Seeing how Howard was struggling to keep his discouragement off his face, he hurriedly said, “Probably I’m just too hungover to process it properly right now. Give me a bit. Especially because you understand, I trust, that I can’t give you an answer before I discuss it with Naomi?”

He phrased it as a question, but Howard nodded. “Sure.”

Michael nodded too, as if he wasn’t sure what else to do with himself. “Thank you.”

Howard nodded – again – and cleared his throat as he stood up. “You know, I don’t think Peg intended to be outside long; I’m going to go swap back out with her.”

“Don’t run off on my account,” Michael requested, looking as if he wanted to say something else – something more – though neither of them were sure what.

“Oh, I’m not,” Howard assured him before slipping out into the tunnel.

He made it all of four steps before he heard familiar footfalls coming up quickly behind him.

Exactly what he’d been afraid of.

Exactly who he’d wanted to escape.

“Listen, J, I—”

“You know Ana doesn’t feel that way anymore, don’t you?” Edwin interrupted almost anxiously.

“Yes, of course.” Howard tried to step a little faster, tried to covertly walk away without letting on that he wanted _away_.

Jarvis – half-giant man – kept up with him with apparent ease. “And I never felt that way.”

“I know, J.”

 “ _Mister Stark_.” His usually sedate butler reached out and grabbed his arm, stopping them both just before the exit of the tunnel.”

“What?!” he asked peevishly.

It was dark where they stood, and Howard could only see the outline of Jarvis’s face, but the concern was clear in the voice of his employee and friend as he asked, “Are you… all right – sir?”

Howard huffed. “Yes and no. Listen. I don’t want to talk about it; I’m – it’s over, let’s leave it in the past. I’m _past_ our marriage – it was never enough of a marriage in the first place for me to be anything else – but _if_ I marry Naomi and Michael, I want to do better this time than I did last time. So maybe, no, I’m not all right, but I think I will be, and until we get home and get this all sorted out, that’s gotta be enough.” He paused, and when Jarvis said nothing, he asked, “Good enough?”

He thought maybe the butler nodded. “Of course.”

“Good.” He moved to start going up the ladder.

Somehow, Jack Thompson beat him to it. The blond hurriedly climbed, tossing over his shoulder at the two men, “She’s awake.”

By the time Howard’s tired, increasingly-sluggish brain caught up with the fact that he meant Naomi, and not the chief’s own fiancée, Thompson was already leaving the tunnel and hissing for Ana. Howard wasn’t sure why he ran back into the room – on why Jarvis lagged behind – but he did.

Predictably, Izsak was kneeling over his little sister, checking her temperature with a hand against her forehead – the best thermometer they had here. He grinned – the first time Howard had seen Izsak smile – as he announced, “Her fever has broken!”

Howard smiled right back at him, letting himself get caught up in the moment. “That’s great!”

Both Michael and Naomi looked to him, and he could see the wheels turning in her head as she tried to place him. Michael hummed, gesturing Howard to them. Obeying warily – a bright, hopefully disarming smile on his face the whole time – Howard was surprised when Michael took his hand as the soldier said, “Naomi, this is Howard Sta—”

“ _Naomi!_ ” Ana came running, and didn’t stop until she was holding her sister tightly in a hug that looked to be just the right sort of crushing.

Howard’s smile stayed firmly in place, genuinely happy for them all. When he went to step back – _give them all their moment_ – Michael kept a hold on his hand, nodding towards the crate Howard had just left instead. Taking his cue, he sat.

If someone wanted him to share the moment, why wouldn’t he oblige them?

* * *

 

Not terribly long afterward, Izsak and Chief Thompson started actively trying to wake Lydia, speaking softly to her in a medley of languages as they ran their hands gently through her hair, over her forehead and cheeks, arms and hands.

Naomi rather wished they wouldn’t.

Nearly an hour ago, Howard Stark had sat at her and Michael’s bedside and proposed – with Michael occasionally chiming in – well… marriage. She had accepted alongside Michael because she had to, didn’t she? They needed out of Tokyo, he’d offered a way, they’d taken the offer. Simple.

And oh so terrifying.

“ _There, dearest_ ,” Izsak cooed to Lydia in his broken Japanese.

His tone had changed, and Naomi’s head snapped around from where she’d been sitting at their sad excuse for a table. Lydia had woken. Chief Thompson, too, said something to his fiancée in his more fluent Japanese, and Lydia nodded slowly.

“She’s awake,” Izsak announced for those who had yet to notice, not that they had much else to do down here.

The chief was more concise, adding, “And she says she’s good with leaving as soon as possible. It’s time to go, guys.”

Michael, even though he still had a fever, pushed the blankets off of his body and began to stand. Ana was already leaving the room to go tell their current lookouts that it was time to move.

Naomi swallowed thickly as she thought of what was to come in order for them to make it to America. This was their way out, their one chance. She told herself very firmly that she was not going to be nauseous, or even let the others see that she was nervous.

She just hoped that no one noticed that she couldn’t even look at Howard Stark as they packed and made their way out of the tunnel and into what had once again faded into a dark night. She would be perfectly fine – after all, this was the flight that would – she hoped and prayed – eventually lead herself and those she cared the most about onto a better life.


End file.
